Because of You
by Morwen Maranwe
Summary: Inspired by the song 'Because of You' by Kelly Clarkson.  What life has become for Nessie after Edward's death.


Okay, so another semi-songfic. Told you I liked them. This one was really hard to write, and it ended up being an AU because I don't really think that Bella would ignore Renesmee that way if anything were to happen to Edward. If anything I believe Bella would latch on even tighter to her daughter. But I love this song because it has so much feeling behind it, and it's so true in the real world.

Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight, and I do not own the song.

"_I will not make the same mistakes that you did  
I will not let myself  
Cause my heart so much misery  
I will not break the way you did,  
You fell so hard  
I've learned the hard way  
To never let it get that far"_

-Kelly Clarkson, "Because of You"

"Nessie."

Jacob caught up with me at the edge of the clearing. I should have known that someone would find me before I made it too far. I contemplated walking away, slinking into the shadows that the trees cast and away from him, but I knew that wouldn't matter. He would still be able to find me. He didn't need to see me to know where I was. I wished that I could say the same thing.

"What are you doing? You're family is worried sick about you."

I had crossed the treaty line so that they wouldn't be able to follow me. This way there was only Jacob to deal with, and he would do whatever I wanted him to. Even leave me alone.

"I can't stay here, Jacob," I told him, keeping my back to him. I knew that if I looked in his face, he would be able to tell that I was faking. And I couldn't let him know that. Because if he knew that then I would never be able to make myself leave.

"What do you mean?"

He took a step towards me and my body stiffened, a silent warning to stay away or I would run. He skirted the safe area around me like a starving animal trying to get at someone else's food.

"I have to go," I repeated. A warm breeze blew across me and caught some of my hair, sending it swirling around me. I could only imagine what I looked like to him in the silver moonlight shining down through the trees; I had dressed in dark clothes to try to hide better in the shadows, but my pale skin was no doubt glowing in the darkness. "Because I can't do to myself what she did."

He knew who I spoke of, though he would never talk about it out loud. No one ever did. Everyone ignored what my mother had become. A ghost, a haunt, a shell of a woman who had lost everything that meant anything at all to her too soon after she had been given everything she had ever wanted.

A tear rolled down my cheek and I wiped at it absentmindedly, pretending that I did not even notice it. But the pain I could not ignore. The empty hole that blossomed inside of me, that hurt more than anything I had ever felt before. It took all my willpower not to break down and sob right there. But I could not do that. Because if I did, he would never let me go, and I would never want to go.

"Let me take you home, everyone is wondering where you went." He reached out a hand to me, and I almost took it. But I could not.

"Home to what, Jacob?" I yelled, turning to face him for the first time, because I thought it would be safe to do now, now that my anger was on my side. He looked like a lost child, not understanding why I was doing what I was doing. "Home to my mother, who won't even look at me because she can't stand the sight of me anymore? Home to a music-less house, to an empty room where my father should be, reading or playing games with his brothers? Home to people who will not talk to me, because they have no idea what to say to me? I don't _want_ to go home, Jake. I want to go _away_. Away from here, away from all these people and all these places that remind me of him, that remind me of everything that I don't have anymore!"

"Okay," he said softly, as if he might scare me off if he spoke too loud or made movements that were too fast. "Okay, let's go then. You and me. I'll let them know that I'll be with you, and we'll just take off. We'll go anywhere you want." He walked towards me, and I had to take a step back, just so that I didn't go running to him.

"No, Jacob," I said sternly. "I'm not going anywhere with you. I'm going by myself."

"Nessie," his voice broke slightly, and more tears slipped down my face. He looked like there were so many things he wanted to say, so many questions that he wanted answered. But all that came out of his throat when he opened his mouth to speak was a single word.

"Why?"

"I can't love you, Jake," I told him harshly, because if I could not tell him this then I knew I would never be able to save myself. "I can't let myself love you the way my mother loved my father. Look at what happened!" And now I was yelling, hysterical, the tears spilling freely down my cheeks. "Look at what she's become! How can I let that happen to me? How can you?" And now I knew that I was not being fair to ask how he could ruin my life that way.

I knew what I would say if my mother were here in this clearing instead of Jacob. If she were the one who was trying to get me to come back home with her.

I would cry and scream at her, cuss at her and take a swing. I would fall into her cold, hard arms and weep. I would ask her why I wasn't enough for her after he had been taken from her. I would remind her that he was not here for me, either, that we were in this pain together.

But no, she believed that no one shared the same pain that she felt. And maybe she was right. Because the rest of us could go on, could keep on living our lives without his presence, without his words of encouragement, without his music. But she could not.

But she was not the one here. She would never have left the home that she had shared with my father. Not even for me. I knew this because she had not left that home in the ten years since he had died.

How could Jacob expect me to marry him, after living my whole life seeing first hand what love does to a person who loses it? How could he want me to give him my heart completely, the way my mother had given my father hers, when he saw what could happen to me?

There were no words to describe Bella after Edward had died. It was too painful to watch, to see her struggle to take every breath, to know that she was wishing for death every second of every day. No one wanted to go near her, no one wanted to get sucked into the black hole of despair and hopelessness that she had created around herself, because they all wanted to continue living their lives after their son and brother was gone. She did not. And so that left only me. Only me to take care of her. Only me to make sure that I would not wake up one morning and be left an orphan.

I hated them all for that. I hated them all for being too cowardly to try to help her. They rested all their hopes for her on a child. Granted, I was almost full grown at that point, but I had spent less of my life with my parents than anyone else had. Did I not deserve to be allowed to grieve for my dead father? Did I not deserve to be held by my mother as we both wept for the man that we had lost?

Of course I did. But no one gave me any of that, least of all my mother. And I hated her the most for it. Hated her for not letting me mourn my father, hated her for not letting me love my soul mate.

"She's _ruined me_!" I screamed at Jacob, and the sound was torn and animalistic and I barely even recognized my voice in it. "I hate her, Jacob, I hate her so much!" I was sobbing now, my words barely tangible, and in the haze of pain that surrounded my mind I felt his arms wrap around me, the heat from them a little blessing against the chilly night air. Unconsciously I reached up to his cheek with my palm, wanting to show him, wanting him to _know_. I had not let anyone see my mother the way I had seen her, hear what I heard in her voice when she spoke. But it was too much for me suddenly, too much of a burden to have on my shoulders, too big of a secret to keep to just myself anymore.

Through my memories he saw Bella, her pale face stained with red as blood tears ran down her cheeks. They had told me that vampires could not cry, but I had learned the hard way that some things were so painful that they betrayed the very laws of nature. Secretly I thought that she felt that he deserved tears, and she would do anything, even torture herself with his memory until her mind could not stand it anymore, to give him that small piece of herself.

He saw Bella through the crack of the door to my parent's bedroom, shards of glass from the mirror they kept in the bathroom and shreds of clothing laying scattered along the floor, sitting at the foot of their bed throwing books, cd's, albums, pictures and anything else that reminded her of him into the fireplace, watching them all burn and letting the putrid smell fill our tiny cottage.

Then I showed him how Bella had taken everything from me that had reminded her of Edward. Stuffed animals, Christmas and birthday presents, even the sheets from my bed that we had all picked out together. She never said a word to me, never told me that we would replace the things I needed, like the blankets, or even lied to me, saying that she would get me new toys. She didn't speak to me at all for almost a month.

All of these things my family let me handle alone. They had tried to take me from my mother once, I assumed for my own safety. But, although she did not want me anywhere near her, I figured that she would hold on to the only real piece of Edward that was left. She had very nearly ripped Emmett's arm out of its socket when he had reached out to pick me up. No one touched me after that. No one even tried to help me.

Even years later, as it became clear that my mother would not die of grief—because if that would have happened, surely it would have been the very moment that Edward died at the hands of Aro, as we all watched as the demon-vampire tore our lives to shreds—and I grew into a woman, nothing was different. Bella hardly ever spoke to me, and never looked at me, and I had to bring animals to her to eat, otherwise she would have wasted away to nothing before my very eyes. I let Jacob see how she had withered into herself, her body shrinking from lack of movement and exercise, and how I had to watch her everyday as she slowly tried to will herself into nonexistence so that she could be with him, wherever he was.

I let Jacob see all of this, let him feel my pain and fear as I dealt with my father's death and my mother's failing mind on my own. His arms tightened around me and I hid my face in his chest, trying to forget all of the things I had just shown him, trying to forget all of the people I knew and everything that had happened to me.

"Do you see what she did to me?" I asked him, my voice muffled and broken. "Do you see what she let happen to us?"

"I know, honey, I know." He tried to comfort me, but what could he say? There were no words to console me, nothing to make the past ten years go away. "But Nessie, I would never-"

I cut him off before the words could get past him lips. "Don't you _ever_ tell me that you would never leave me, Jacob!" I screamed at him, pushing him away from me. He stared at me, his eyes wide in shock. "Don't lie to me about that!"

He reached out for me again, but I shoved his arms away from me. "Nessie, it's not a lie!" he said pitifully.

"Well, it's not the truth," I said, my voice a little calmer. "You can't know that you would never leave me, Jacob. You can't know that you won't be taken from me the way my father was taken from my mother. I don't want to love you," I told him, and that was the painful truth. I didn't want to, but I did. I did so much that it scared me.

"You don't have to love me, Nessie, just don't leave me." He was pleading with me now, his voice raw with emotion and the fear that I would walk away from him. I knew that he would say anything, tell me anything I wanted to hear just so that I would stay with him.

I shook my head, a sad smile playing at my lips. "It's not going to work like that, Jacob. If I stay, I'll end up marrying you, and if I marry you, one of us will eventually die. And I can't let you live like that anymore than I can let myself live like that. I'm doing this for both of us. I don't want you to hurt the way she does, either." I reached up to touch his face, but kept my memories and thoughts to myself this time. I just wanted him to feel my hand one last time, feel the touch I had shared with him since I was born, the touch that we shared our most intimate connection through.

"It would be different if he were still alive," I whispered, leaning closer to Jacob to inhale his scent one last time. "I wouldn't know this kind of pain." His smell made me dizzy, musk and pine needles and wood burning in a fire. I would never forget it.

"Forget the pain, Nessie," he was crying now, begging me with his eyes, and I knew what I was going to have to do, even though I hated the very thought of it. "Forget everything that isn't you and me, that isn't our future together."

"You need to let me go, Jacob," I said evenly. "I want to leave."

He looked as though I had struck him, and I began to cry again, silent tears. "Goodbye, Jake." I reached up to kiss him, and I didn't let myself think about how right it felt to be in his arms, or how much I would have loved it if he would come with me. Because I was doing this for both of us. I couldn't give our hearts the chance to put us through so much misery.

I turned and walked away from him, knowing that he wouldn't follow me. I stepped out from underneath the moonlight and into the shadows of a big fir tree. I didn't know where I was going, maybe to the Denali clan for a while, and then on to Chicago where my father had lived when he was human. Maybe then I could get the chance to make my peace with his memory. I could not do that here, I knew that, and I could not live a happy life with Jacob unless I was able to sort through everything and deal with it. The only sound was my light footsteps on the soft, brown earth, and my even breathing. As each step took me farther and farther away from the man I loved I wondered vaguely how it could feel like my heart was breaking, when it had never really been whole to start with.


End file.
